


Drift Compatible

by Scrawlers



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pacific Rim AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17033124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Lotor has been chosen to pilot Blackfire Supernova, a jaeger that was decommissioned after one of its pilots, Takashi Shirogane, died in battle. But the other pilot, Keith Kogane, is still alive, and something tells Lotor that he doesn't quite approve of the potential candidates chosen to be Lotor's co-pilot, despite having selected them himself.





	Drift Compatible

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a year ago, but in light of Tumblr being . . . Tumblr, I've decided to archive everything here, just in case.
> 
> I wrote this as an exercise, to see how well I could adapt a scene from another form of media. That said, I also wanted to stay true to the characters and not have it be a copy-and-paste adaptation, so there are some differences as well. I liked how it turned out, so I feel it's worth saving here.

Despite the dismal state of the war, many (if not most) thought of the Jaeger pilot program as an exercise in grandeur. To pilot a Jaeger was to be a hero. To pilot a Jaeger was to play an instrumental part in ending the war against the Precursors. To pilot a Jaeger was to demonstrate that you were one of the elite few who had the ability to not only engage in combat from within the cockpit of a mechanical beast hundreds of time larger than yourself, but that you had the endurance to withstand the physical pressures of the act. The government might have felt that the project had failed and that the planet was a lost cause, but the average citizenry still looked upon the Jaegers as testaments to potential greatness, wishing (on some level) that they, too, could sample a taste of the glory.

As he stood in the center of the mat in the combat room, awaiting the first of the candidates that had been selected as his potential Drift partners, Lotor felt that no one among the citizenry had the faintest idea of the misfortune they were wishing on themselves.

To pilot a Jaeger was to Drift. To Drift was to allow someone into every facet of your mind. It was to allow someone to access not only your emotions, there in the present, but every thought and memory you had ever accumulated. Only those who were Drift Compatible could pilot a Jaeger together; only those who had not only an unspoken bond of trust, but an intimate, inexplicable understanding of their copilot could successfully meet each other in the Drift. Of course, not all Drifting was that . . .  _ideal_. There were . . .  _ways_ to induce a Drift involuntarily, ways that Lotor’s mother had discovered, ways that she had tested on—

Well. Involuntary Drifting with creatures that weren’t suited to be Jaeger pilots was possible, but better not dwelled on. It was something that no one had any business knowing about.

This was why (or at least  _part_ of the reason why) Lotor had avoided the Pan Pacific Defense Corps for so long. He had no interest in letting another in his head—had no interest in baring the deepest recesses of his soul to another the moment the neural handshake connected. There was a reason he had stayed on the outskirts of the war—a reason why he had made it a point to live on the fringes of society despite how instrumental both of his parents had been in the construction of the Jaeger program in the first place. The moment he was afforded an opportunity to escape, he had taken it. He had no interest in piloting a Jaeger. He wanted to see an end to the Precursors’ reign of terror as much as anyone, but not if it meant willingly entering the Drift.

But remaining on the fringe of the situation, and trying to orchestrate events from the outside, was no longer an option. There was no one on the planet who had the level of Drift Compatibility he did. His mother had made certain of that.

So here he stood, facing a group of candidates selected by Keith Kogane, a J-tech officer and head of the Mark III Restoration Project—a project which had, incidentally, restored the very same Jaeger that Keith himself used to pilot alongside the now deceased Takashi Shirogane. Blackfire Supernova was considered a classic among Jaeger enthusiasts, yet most would agree that the years it had spent out of operation as a result of the death (and near-death) of one of its pilots mid-battle had rendered it obsolete in comparison to newer models. But its restoration had done wonders for it, and Marshal Kolivan was adamant that Blackfire Supernova was necessary for the battle of the breach. Moreover, he had been equally as adamant that it was necessary for Lotor to be one of the pilots of it.

Lotor, someone who had never piloted a Jaeger before, rather than Keith, one of Blackfire Supernova’s former pilots.

As the first of the selected candidates stepped into the ring, Lotor cast a glance over his shoulder. Keith stood on the edge of the ring by Marshal Kolivan’s side, a tablet balanced in the crook of his arm so that he could assess Lotor’s duels against the potential candidates. Keith’s eyes were focused on his tablet, but Kolivan’s eyes were boring into Lotor.

It was Lotor that Kolivan wanted to pilot Blackfire Supernova, and as far as Lotor knew, Keith hadn’t even been considered for the position.

Interesting.

But there was no time to dwell on it. The first of the candidates, a young man Lotor believed was named Regris, stepped forward. Lotor ran his thumb along the hilt of the wooden sword in his hand. Regris was about his height, perhaps a little taller. His shoulders were broad. His posture was not the greatest. Despite his height, his body type was lanky; it didn’t look as though he had much muscle definition.

“Begin.”

Kolivan’s command was clear, and the only prompting Regris needed before he launched himself forward, his own wooden sword brought down in a vertical strike. Lotor raised his own in a horizontal block, and pushed back and up to turn the blow into a parry. Regris pulled back for only a moment; he came at Lotor again, this time swinging his training blade in a wide arc, and when he did, Lotor ducked under and spun around to place himself behind Regris. To Regris’ credit, his falter was so slight it might not have been noticeable to most. But Lotor noticed, and he smirked as Regris turned on him again, once again throwing himself at Lotor with a flurry of attacks that left him too wide open for counterstrikes. Lotor blocked the attacks, leading Regris across the floor, and just when he had allowed Regris to think that he potentially had the upper hand, he swept Regris’ ankles and dropped him to the mat, the point of his wooden blade at Regris’ throat.

“Four-zero.”

Keith’s voice easily cut through the applause from the gathered candidates. As Regris picked himself up off the floor, Lotor looked back. Keith was watching him—or he had been, but the moment their eyes locked, Keith looked back at his tablet. He was scowling; displeasure was more than evident in the frown on his lips, the pinch of his brow, the tense set of his shoulders. Lotor had won the match handily, yet Keith was displeased.

Lotor turned back to Regris as Regris returned to the candidate crowd. Regris was inexperienced, and there was something about the casual set of his shoulders that suggested a lack of reliability.

If Keith was displeased with Regris, Lotor felt he couldn’t blame him.

The next candidate, a woman Lotor believed was named Vrek, stepped forward. She was shorter than Regris, and bright-eyed, with a sort of innocence to her face that made her perhaps look younger than she was in reality. She, too, held a wooden sword, but unlike Lotor she grasped it in both hands. There was a hint of nerves in the determined press of her lips.

Lotor flipped his sword in his hand, and once more stood his ground as Kolivan said, “Begin.”

Unlike Regris, Vrek waited a moment to see if he would make the first move. When he declined, she did. Like Regris, her attack was direct—but  _unlike_ him, she aimed low, taking advantage of her shorter frame. Lotor blocked her strike, and this time he pushed the attack. She met him blow-for-blow, but it was clear that she was on the defensive, that she was improvising as best she could in a situation she wasn’t prepared for. After one of her blocks slid off his blade and struck his leg, Lotor struck his own against her wrist and used her stumble to drop her to the mat. The moment Vrek hit the floor, Lotor looked back at Keith.

“Four-one.”

The same  _look_ , the same tone. Keith noted the results of the match on his tablet, but this time his eyes had lingered on Lotor for a moment longer. Lotor narrowed his eyes. Keith was clearly displeased, and while Lotor was not at all interested in allowing either Regris or Vrek to Drift with him, Keith’s annoyance chafed. It was one thing to have him there to assess the matches; it was another altogether to have him so clearly  _judgmental_ about a process he had helped arrange.

The third candidate, a woman named Ilun, stepped forward. She was taller than either Regris or Vrek, and more muscular. The wooden sword she grasped looked a bit too small in her hand, and the smirk she bore was a perfect complement to the patronizing stare she set on him. Ilun, clearly, felt she outclassed him.

Lotor allowed himself a little smirk in turn.

They would see.

As Regris and Vrek had done before her, Ilun initiated the duel the moment she heard Kolivan’s command. To her credit, she was skilled; for a brief moment at the beginning of the bout Lotor found himself pushed to the defensive, and it was due at least in part to her flawless technique. Yet in her haste to prove her superiority, she pushed too far; Lotor skipped back to put more distance between them, and when she rushed him again, he ducked to the side and swiped his blade against the back of her knee, slamming her onto the mat back first.

“Four-two.”

Lotor didn’t need to look at Keith to hear the displeasure—the  _derision_ —in his tone. Yet as Ilun, an annoyed grimace having replaced the condescending smirk on her face, dragged herself up off the mat, Lotor did look back to Keith, and found himself wholly unsurprised to see that Keith’s was looking down at his tablet in disdain.

That was three for three, then. Three candidates who were wholly unsatisfactory not only in Lotor’s eyes, but apparently in Keith’s as well.  

Interesting, but also a little annoying. Lotor wasn’t fond of wasting time, even for activities he had no desire to partake in. He had thought upon their first meeting that Keith felt the same.

So as the fourth candidate stepped forward, Lotor held one hand to indicate they should hold. They did; they lingered back on the edge of the mat, confusion written across their face, as Lotor turned to face Keith.

“Might I suggest we put this endeavor on hold until you gather a more suitable group of candidates?” Lotor asked.

Keith looked up from his tablet, his eyes wide and off-guard for only a moment before he narrowed them in a glare. “What?”

“I was informed you selected this group of candidates personally. Yet it’s obvious after every bout that their performances displease you,” Lotor said. “If that’s the case, it may be best to temporarily suspend these trials until you can gather a more suitable group. This one clearly isn’t meeting your standards.”

Keith had set his jaw hard as Lotor spoke, and when Lotor finished, he snapped, “It’s not them I have a problem with. It’s you.”

Lotor raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

“You’re toying with them,” Keith said. “You’re dragging out these fights longer than you have to. You’re not making a serious effort.”

Lotor considered him. Keith’s tone was critical, his stare as sharp as his tone. But he wasn’t talking  _down_ to Lotor, nor was he hazarding a guess at what Lotor thought or felt. There was certainty in his voice, strong as steel. He might have been critical, but he wasn’t criticizing. He was calling it as he saw it.

Though he already knew the answer, Lotor asked, “Is that truly what you believe?”

Keith’s stare didn’t waver. “It’s what I know.”

Despite the situation, Lotor smiled.

“Interesting,” he said, and then took a step back and swept his arms to the side, his wooden blade held at the ready. “Then why don’t you join me in the ring and demonstrate how you feel these matches should be fought?”

Any doubt Lotor may have had about Keith’s willingness to once again pilot Blackfire Supernova vanished in that instant. Keith’s eyes lit up as they widened, yet even as he took a step forward to take Lotor up on his invitation, Kolivan spoke up.

“No.”

Keith froze, and clenched his jaw as he looked down at his feet. If Kolivan noticed, he didn’t show it.

“You were informed of the rules to these combat trials before you began. You are to face the candidates we selected for you. Only those with Drift Compatibility—”

“I  _have_ Drift Compatibility!” Keith burst out, and he put a hand against his chest as he whirled to face Kolivan. Kolivan turned to him, his brow creased in a severe line, his lips tugged down into just as severe a frown. “Kolivan, I—!”

“Neural compatibility isn’t only about technical ability,” Kolivan said, and though it was clear he was attempting to speak quietly and only to Keith’s ears, the deep timbre of his voice carried easily to Lotor’s. “It is also about  _emotional_ compatibility and cohesiveness between the pilots.”

It was true, and the very idea made an unpleasant chill snake in Lotor’s gut. Yet of everyone gathered in the room, he felt that if anyone had a chance of being an acceptable copilot in the Drift, that someone was Keith. So as Keith held his tablet in a grip so tight his knuckles were pale, Lotor raised his voice and said:

“Well, Marshal, I do imagine that you have an accurate assessment of your men. If you deem Keith inadequate and unable to stand in the ring with me, then I feel we must all defer to your judgment.”

Keith looked back at Lotor for only a moment, but that moment was enough; his eyes were blazing. He turned that same burning stare back on Kolivan, who gave Lotor a stare of deep dislike for only a moment before he turned to meet Keith’s eyes.

“Go,” Kolivan said, and he held out his hand to take the tablet. Keith grinned, bright and fierce and the first smile Lotor had seen from him since meeting him, and all but pushed his tablet into Kolivan’s hands before he shrugged off his jacket and shirked his boots.

Keith was shorter than any of the other candidates Lotor had faced in the ring; when they stood near each other, the top of Keith’s head only just graced Lotor’s chest. But although he was short, he was not slight; his biceps were clearly defined, and though his pants were not skintight, it wasn’t difficult to see the strength in his strides as he made his way onto the mat. Keith was more than well-built; it was evident from the way he gripped the wooden sword that was tossed to him that he actively worked on himself, that he regularly put effort into training. But more interesting than his physical form was the way he carried himself. There was an old scar evident on his bare shoulder, long and jagged. There was fire in his eyes that spoke far more to the experiences he had beneath his belt than the comfortable and familiar way he held his blade. There was determination in every ounce of him as he strode across the mat, his head held high and his shoulders back, his posture set so that even though he was noticeably shorter than Lotor himself, there was no questioning the fact that they carried the same weight.

“I have to admit, I’m looking forward to our dialogue,” Lotor said, as the two of them circled around each other to take their positions. “But per your earlier commentary, I feel it necessary to inform you that I won’t be holding back. I plan to give this my all.”

Keith spun his sword in his hand once before he caught it, and when he finally turned to face Lotor, he did so with his eyes narrowed in challenge, his lips curled in a little smirk.

“Can’t wait,” he said.

Keith was sizing him up, Lotor could tell—was gauging, assessing, despite how he must have done so during the earlier matches already. Yet though he had been paying attention to the earlier matches, Lotor didn’t feel the need to give him any more of an advantage of foreknowledge than he already had. He spun his sword in his grip once before he charged Keith across the mat.

Keith moved in the same instant.

Their wooden blades clashed, the aftershock rippling down through Lotor’s arm. Lotor pulled free of the interlock and swung again, only for Keith to meet him. Keith pushed up and back, and when Lotor spun his blade in a counter-parry, Keith feinted to the side to move around him. Lotor whipped around, and though he brought his sword in a horizontal arc to rest against Keith’s cheek, the tip of Keith’s sword touched the underside of Lotor’s chin.

Lotor felt an unfamiliar thrill of . . .  _something_ run through him.

“One-one,” he said. Keith’s eyes were alight, and as he tilted his head in a sharp nod to agree before he stepped back to put distance between them once more, the smirk on his lips looked closer to a grin.

Their second bout was much like the first; as one they met each other in the middle, and though there was familiarity in Keith’s movements—though Lotor  _knew_ each strike before Keith moved it—it was not due to sloppiness or carelessness on Keith’s part. Keith’s strikes were precise, were concentrated; there was never a movement wasted, never a scrap of vulnerability given. Keith was passionate; he was, as expected, pushing forward with everything he had. Yet as he was flipped onto the mat only to spin around in the next second, his blade against Lotor’s gut just as Lotor’s own was in his face ( _two-two_ ), what was evident was that he wasn’t merely throwing himself recklessly into battle, expending all his energy in fruitless attacks that would do no one, least of all him, any good. Keith was doing all that he had to,  _because_ he had to.

Lotor ran at Keith again, and spun to swing his sword in a wide, horizontal arc. Keith ducked underneath it and side-stepped him. Lotor swung his sword behind him to counter Keith’s strike, and forced Keith to transfer his own sword to his opposite hand to block the next blow. They didn’t pause; Keith was able to seamlessly transfer his sword back to his other hand to counter Lotor’s next attack and push back with one of their own. Their blades connected time and again, the bout between them only concluding when Lotor was flipped, landed in a crouch, and spun to thrust his blade against Keith’s gut, just as Keith put the tip of his own in Lotor’s face, a near-perfect reversal of their earlier positions.

_Three-three._

They had a rhythm, a balance—a steady  _thrum_ of a physical conversation that didn’t allow for either of them to ease up. Lotor jumped over a kick that Keith swept toward his ankles, and Keith in turn raised his sword horizontally to prevent Lotor’s wooden blade from crashing into his face. Every muscle in Lotor’s body felt alive; every ounce of his attention was encapsulated by the match. Keith sparred with the intensity of one who knew that no fight was to be taken lightly, that one slip could lead to a last breath. He fought with the intensity of one who was determined to survive, or at least determined to fight with every last drop of blood in him for that survival. It wasn’t fear of death that drove him, but fear of failure. It was fear of letting down those that mattered—fear of failing those who needed him most. It was a refusal to be used and reduced to nothing while there was still something that could be done about it.

Lotor jumped to avoid another kick, but this (as Lotor knew he would be) Keith was prepared for. He grabbed Lotor’s leg, and with more strength than one might have expected from him, he flipped Lotor down onto the mat. Yet Lotor, too, was ready; though Keith held his right leg in a grip that could twist and break it, the point of his sword aimed down at Lotor’s chest, Lotor kicked with his left and slammed his foot into Keith’s neck. Keith was knocked to the side, but he didn’t release his grip on Lotor; instead they laid tangled on the mat, breathing hard, staring right into each other’s eyes. Neither needed to speak to know what the other was thinking.

_Four-four._

“That’s enough,” Kolivan said. His voice broke not only the newly spread silence in the room, but also the moment. Lotor and Keith pulled apart from one another, and rose to their feet. Keith stepped away from Lotor and stood at attention as Kolivan stared them down. “I’ve seen all that I need to see.”

“As have I,” Lotor said. Keith had stepped away from them, but now Lotor closed the distance between them, and put his hand on Keith’s shoulder. Keith looked over at him in surprise. “Keith will be my copilot.”

Kolivan’s response was immediate. “Absolutely not.”

Keith shrugged Lotor’s hand off his shoulder as he stepped forward. “Kolivan—!”

“I said no.”

Keith locked his jaw, glaring fiercely at Kolivan. Lotor couldn’t say that he blamed him. He had only known Kolivan for a short while himself, yet that short while was enough to make Kolivan’s answer as unsurprising as it was aggravating. Unfortunately for all involved parties, Lotor was never one to let a subject lie when he found it unsatisfactory.

So he said, “And may I ask why that is?”

“You may,” Kolivan said, “but I am under no obligation to explain myself to you. Report to the Shatterdome in two hours. I will assign a copilot to you then.”

“Will you select one randomly from a crowd? Perhaps ask them all to draw straws to see which one comes up short?” Lotor demanded. “No one here aside from Keith is suitable. We have more than ample evidence of that fact. Unless the copilot you select for me is Keith, then—”

“I have made myself clear,” Kolivan said coldly. “You have your directive. See to it that you follow it. I will not repeat myself again.”

Kolivan had hardly finished speaking before he turned and left the room, the still-gathered group of failed candidates breaking into whispers behind them. Lotor turned to Keith, but Keith was not looking at him; instead, Keith was glaring after Kolivan, and after only a second he took off, wooden sword still in hand, following Kolivan at a run through the doors.

Lotor stared after Keith’s retreating back for only a moment before he turned away.

He was never one for willingly following directives. He didn’t intend to make a practice of it now. Kolivan had made himself clear, that was true; but Lotor felt that he had also made  _himself_ clear in the moment. His copilot, if he was to have one, was going to be Keith. There were no other options. And as far as Lotor was concerned, the sooner Kolivan understood that, the better off all of them would be.


End file.
